Keeping On Keeping On

My finished manuscript is with my betas, The Dawg Pack. I'm waiting...waiting...waiting. There are rules within the pack, and so I'm loathe to try to hurry them or to ask when they think they'll be finished. It's certainly bad form because ultimately they're doing me a great favor. It's not like they've borrowed money. They're reading and re-reading the book so it will be pristine by the time I offer the re-submit requested by an agent. I have to be patient. Patience is a virtue, one that doesn't come easy.

What to do when betas are working? Write. Write your little heart out. I'm writing, working on a new manuscript that will probably be finished by the time the betas return my current book. No, they've not had the resubmit for years, just weeks. During that time, I had an idea, polished it, and now I'm almost eighty-nine thousand words along. Do I still want to ask, "Hey, how's it going?" You betcha, but I won't...not anymore.

I tried that. Didn't work. I just got the "patience" thing repeated over and over again. These writers have lives, families, problems, their own work. Battering at their mental doors is not the way to win friends and influence people. It causes tension, unnecessary tension. The second great lesson in working in a writing group? If you pester, your work will fester, become an annoying boil on the (well, you can guess where) of your group members.

When John Keats lay dying from tuberculosis, he wrote his epitath: Here lies a man whose name is writ in water. If Keats had rushed his betas, had denied the concept of favor, those words would probably ring true. He would have received no concrete advice or help, and he would have been forgotten, left to lay beneath the sod, just another would-be writer. Instead, he worked with Byron and others, perfecting his craft. Now, his work is studied in every school and on every campus, and he's classified as one of the six great romantic poets in British history. I'd rather take Keats' route.

John Keats had no way of knowing how important he would become to the literary world, but he did understand the importance of perfecting his craft. That's what working in groups does for any writer. It helps that writer perfect the craft. There's more to writing a book that punching out the story. Craft is equally important, and it's craft that betas teach. Listen to the teachers, hear their words, never lose patience, and one day, you may be able to make a few calls in which you blurt out those all important words, "I just got an agent!"

Hard At It

So, the first of my three betas gave the revise and resubmit version of my novel the once over. She's a reader more than a writer and has the equivalent of degrees in psychology, history, and God bless her, accounting. (To me, any math is more terrifying than Godzilla, up close and personal.) She cut ALL the paranormal elements in the novel.

Why, you ask? Even though I come from a region of the country that thrives on all things paranormal, Mumsy Dawg thinks that my presentation of things that go bump in the night is cliched. Would I like to believe that what I have to offer is new and fresh? You betcha, but if the first dawg in my pack thinks it's cliched, I have to pay attention.

I write in the literary genre. Can't help it. That's me. My efforts to cross over into the paranormal haven't reached her, haven't caused her to sit up and take notice. I'd like to say that I can write in any genre. Some can. Apparently, I can't. She's a trusted member of my pack, and gosh-darn-it, she's never been wrong before. I read and reread her comments and although I weep copious tears, "Out, OUT, dear darlings."

Mumsy Dawg works in purple. My manuscript is covered in long, deep purple marker. I weep and moan. I grimmace with pain, but I make the cuts. It's still my story, still my book, but a review of the version in which her edits have been made offers a clearer picture and more finely honed dialogue. She was right after all. I loved all those paranormal darlings, but without them, I'm inching toward a real story, what Hemingway called the Iceberg Theory of Literature. It's all there, the clues rising above the waves but the gist of it all floating just beneath the surface.

First lesson in working in groups: Learn to kill your darlings, a phrase often used by the Big Dawg. Keep it in mind. What you love in your work might very well be what's standing in the way of the story, and the story is the thing to grab the conscience of the .... in this case, agent!